Careers in Privacy Technology and Innovation

🌊 The Privacy Professional Iceberg 🌊 Most people assume privacy professionals spend their time doing things like reviewing contracts, policy writing or managing data subject requests (DSRs). While those tasks are certainly part of the role, there’s a whole other layer of skills that often go unseen. These are the skills that truly make a difference and allow us to navigate today’s fast-evolving landscape of privacy and AI. What We Actually Do: ⚙️ Operations: Turning legal requirements into practical, scalable processes. Rolling those out and monitoring whether they work, if not, adapt! 🤖 AI & Emerging Technologies: Understanding new and popular tools and technologies and their impact on privacy. Getting ahead of this, so you have done some thinking prior to having to review them during your day-to-day. 📈 Program & Project Management: Building privacy programs that run across teams and jurisdictions. Ensuring projects are planned, executed and properly evaluated with metrics and KPIs is key. 👥 Team Building & Management: Attracting the right team and doing your best to coach and develop them. We’re not just solo experts, if a program is in good shape, chances are there is a group of brilliant people behind that. It’s about creating a privacy function that’s robust and sustainable. 📚 Continuous Learning: Staying ahead of new laws and technologies and what is happening in the real world. Trying new technolgies yourself so you understand what may come across your desk. 🤝 Stakeholder Alignment: Finding the how together with your stakeholders. Influencing across departments to ensure privacy is embedded while ensuring cross-functional alignment and achieving business goals. 🌐 External Relationship Building: Staying connected with industry groups, policy makers and peers. 💼 Business Acumen & Strategy: Business skills are so helpful and will make you more successful, especially for privacy pros in commercial settings. You should understand the business and your colleagues who are driving that business forward. Business skills come in handy while actually running your program too: from user experience design to organisational strategy, learning about this has all been helpful to me. 💻 Tech-Driven Compliance Solutions: Staying up-to-date with tech solutions to improve, automate and manage compliance. 🎨 Creativity in Compliance: Try and have fun along the way. For example, your training can be fun and entertaining and done in ways beyond just recording a video or buying one off the shelf. This was an impossible list, I could have added so many more. Pitching skills is another one! 💖What else belongs on here?

Privacy pros are no longer just advising leadership. They are leadership. This is Path 6 in my privacy career series. While executive transitions from privacy remain less common than other routes, three clear patterns seem to be emerging: The Entrepreneur Route → Former CPOs launching or scaling startups → A state CPO became co-CEO of an AI firm that raised $2.2M → A security lead at a major platform became CEO of a privacy automation startup within a year These are not incremental moves. They’re leaps, fueled by deep understanding of unsolved problems. The Strategic Expander → According to the IAPP’s 2025 report, 68% of privacy professionals now oversee AI governance → Titles are evolving: Chief Privacy and Trust Officer, Corporate VP for Privacy, Safety, and Regulatory Affairs → These roles shape trust strategy, product development, and public positioning. The Operations Bridge → Privacy ops professionals are becoming VPs of Operations and Chiefs of Staff → Their core skills—process design, cross-functional coordination, regulatory strategy—transfer directly → These roles reward the same strengths that make privacy work succeed at scale. What makes these moves possible? Privacy professionals are often the ones who can: → Lead without authority → Navigate ambiguity and regulation → Influence cross-functional decisions → Balance compliance and innovation → Build systems that hold under pressure These are executive skills. I’m tracking these strategies now. Have you seen this unfold in your network? What executive transitions have surprised or inspired you? Let’s make this path more visible.

🤖 Top Skills Privacy Pros Will Need in an AI World 1. 🧠 Understanding AI Fundamentals You don’t need to be a data scientist — but you must understand how AI works, especially around data flows and logic. • Types of AI (machine learning, deep learning, NLP, etc.) • Inputs and outputs of AI models (e.g., personal data used in training) • Automated decision-making vs. human-in-the-loop 🛠 How to learn: Take a “AI for non-tech professionals” course (e.g., Google, IBM, Coursera) ⸻ 2. ⚖️ AI & Data Privacy Risk Assessment Identify privacy risks in AI models before they go live. • Is personal data being used in training? How is it anonymized? • Can the model infer sensitive attributes (e.g., race, gender)? • Are outputs explainable and fair? 🛠 How to apply: Develop an AI Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) or embed privacy into the AI model lifecycle. ⸻ 3. 📜 AI Regulation & Legal Awareness Stay ahead of upcoming frameworks and laws: • UAE AI regulations, PDPL, and Central Bank expectations • EU AI Act, OECD AI Principles, GCC Digital Charter • Understand automated decision-making restrictions under GDPR-like laws 🛠 How to grow: Subscribe to legal updates; attend AI & privacy law webinars; follow regulators like the EU AI Office ⸻ 4. 🕵️♀️ Bias Detection & Algorithmic Fairness AI can reinforce discrimination — privacy pros must assess: • How data was collected and labeled • Whether outputs vary unfairly across demographic groups • Whether users can appeal AI decisions (e.g., loan denial) 🛠 Your role: Collaborate with data science teams to build fairness and transparency reviews into model governance ⸻ 5. 🔒 Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) Learn the tools that enable AI without compromising privacy: • Federated learning • Differential privacy • Synthetic data • Homomorphic encryption 🛠 Use case: Use PETs when building AI in finance, health, or digital ID use cases ⸻ 6. 📈 AI Governance & Accountability Frameworks Privacy pros will help design and monitor internal governance: • AI use-case registry with risk ratings • Documentation of model logic and data inputs • Ethical AI review boards and escalation processes 🛠 Output: Build an AI governance checklist as part of your privacy framework ⸻ 7. 💬 Cross-Functional Collaboration & Communication You’ll often be the translator between legal, business, IT, and data science. • Explain privacy risks of AI in simple language • Work with product managers and engineers to embed privacy by design • Guide leadership on responsible AI strategy 🛠 Tip: Use visuals, storytelling, and real-life cases when presenting AI risks to leadership ⸻ 🎯 Bonus: Future Privacy Titles in an AI-Driven World • AI Privacy Officer • Responsible AI Advisor • Ethics & Fairness Risk Lead • Algorithmic Governance Manager • AI Data Steward Feel free to add more AI driven privacy titles.

68% of the titles on LinkedIn’s Jobs on the Rise list didn't exist 20 years ago. While that’s a mind-blowing stat, for many of us in the privacy community it’s not a surprise as we’re some of the first to have the word “privacy” in our job title.  In the span of just 20+ years an entire profession of lawyers, project managers, engineers and product managers dedicated to privacy has emerged as well as a smattering of privacy forward start-ups and companies.   With the rise of AI and the continuing growth of data driven industries, the demand for privacy professionals and privacy focused companies will only continue.     Since the passage of GDPR in 2018, we’ve seen a surge in privacy forward start-ups and jobs on our platform. Privacy engineers, data management engineers, privacy program managers, privacy lawyers and privacy ethicists. In the last five years, the number of LinkedIn members globally with the title Chief Privacy Officer increased around 35%, privacy engineer job titles grew by 40% and GDPR as a skill LinkedIn members have self-identified has grown over 30%.     This talent pool is strong, but currently small and for that reason is in extremely high demand, with a median tenure at a company of just 1.2 years. And similar to other industries, including green talent, privacy jobs are subject to a gender gap – 67% men compared to 33% women -- which is quite a shift from 20 plus years ago when many professionals were covering privacy as an add on to their primary job.    All of this frames my optimism-with-conviction for 2024 and beyond. As many of us privacy professionals celebrate International Data Privacy Day this week, keep in mind that as Generative AI and other new technologies emerge, there will be an even greater need for professionals specializing in privacy engineering, privacy law, privacy product management, data management and privacy ethics. Just as GDPR sparked new careers in privacy, the emergence and responsible growth of AI will do the same.     At LinkedIn we recognize the need to continue to foster and support this growing community of privacy professionals through courses on LinkedIn Learning and sharing privacy content through the feed and our editorial content. We look forward to seeing this industry continue to grow in 2024. Take a spin through LinkedIn Learning’s Most Popular AI courses- free until July 2024. There's some terrific content that I believe can help privacy professionals and others move from worry to optimism about what comes next. #privacy #privacylaw #privacymatters #privacyengineering #privacypros